


royal and important

by bossymarmalade (maggie)



Category: Merlin (BBC)
Genre: Character of Colour, Class Issues, F/F, Food
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-20
Updated: 2009-07-20
Packaged: 2017-10-03 03:40:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maggie/pseuds/bossymarmalade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>everybody is made up of pieces, and the challenge is in finding out how they fit together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	royal and important

**Author's Note:**

> standard foreword: if i have written something problematic/oppressive to a marginalized group that you find hurtful, please please please don't think twice about telling me. i will never spew hate at you, will never attack you, and i will always thank you and make the change.

"Oh, and what would you know about an honest day's work?" Arthur scoffs, and his hair is just bleached pale enough by the sun and his skin is just dark enough to forestall anything Morgana might say about his own royal indolence. She presses her lips together instead and resents the fact that Arthur can go outside and romp around and do whatever nonsense he likes, and have his colouring lend him credence of hard work even if he'd just been playing the fool. She's princess enough that she won't turn red with anger and she won't hide her own lily-pale hands in deference, but after all being a princess is what means she has to stay inside and remain lily-pale and relatively inert, and it's so frustrating that she wants to shriek.

Arthur is smirking now, knowing she can't deny it, and so in a fit of pique she _does_ shriek and it's oh so satisfying to see his eyes go wide and startled. "Morgana--" he starts, but before the high echo of her voice has even faded completely, Gwen is there, slipping up next to her with Morgana's favourite russet-coloured velvet cloak, wrapping it snugly around her. "Come, milady," Gwen says without a glance at Arthur. "There were more sickly farm-children than usual who needed tending today; likely you've worn yourself out between that and your archery." Arthur's abashed stare follows them as they leave, and Morgana only waits until they're just inside her chambers before opening up her cloak to envelop Gwen in it too.

"Morgana! Wait for me to close the door!" Gwen scolds, but she's laughing and her hair smells like hay and apples, and Morgana pulls the cloak up like a tent over their heads and drops kisses all over Gwen's forehead and nose.

"This cloak makes us invisible," she informs Gwen, as if it's obvious, and Gwen smiles and strokes her back and nods because after all Gwen is the one who knows that Morgana had a cloak just like this when she was little, one her father gave her for invisibility and that she wore until there were bald patches on it. "I wasn't joking about you being tired," Gwen reminds her, still rubbing along Morgana's ribs like she's a nervous filly. "You must be, or you would have filleted Prince Arthur without blinking for saying something like that to you."

Morgana lets the cloak resettle on her shoulders, frowning. "Yes," she says, dejected. "Well, it isn't as though he's wrong."

"Oh, piffle!" Gwen says briskly, fingers flying to remove Morgana's circlet, her heavy jewelry, beginning on the fastenings of her gown. "Just because your work doesn't involve running about waving swords and getting enchanted or knocked around or sending poor Merlin to the stocks, doesn't mean you don't work." She has Morgana down to her shift in no time and ushers her toward the bed, getting a brush and sitting down on the mattress to apply its scented bristles to Morgana's hair. The firm strokes of the brush make Morgana sleepy and tractable, but right before she settles down and drifts off, she manages to say, "Not work like you have work."

It's only because Gwen knows her so well that this even makes sense to her; she arranges the coverlet just right and pats Morgana's arm and says, "No. But I'm not a princess."

... ... ...

Supper is not only late today, but the joint is roasted with too much fennel and Morgana puts down her knife with a grimace. "I can't stand the new cook," she sighs, leaning back dramatically in her chair. Gwen rolls her eyes but offers, "Should I get you some more of the soup?" and Morgana pouts. She's irresistible when she pouts, everybody says so, and Gwen smiles a little bit with one side of her mouth, eyes fond even through their exasperation.

"Would you be a dear?" she says, and Gwen bobs and moves forward to take her tray. Morgana sips her wine, and although Gwen has an incredible knack for moving with key efficiency and unobtrusiveness -- the mark of an excellent servant -- Morgana notices that she wraps the leftover meat in a cloth and tucks the remaining morsel of bread-crust into her mouth as she leaves. What a peculiar thing to do, Morgana thinks at first, and then it occurs to her that perhaps Gwen doesn't eat the same way that she does. Now that she's thinking about it, she's not even sure where or how Gwen takes her morning and evening meals; everybody eats together at the midday meal, gentry first and the servants afterward, but that's the only time Morgana knows that Camelot provides for its servants' repasts.

When Gwen returns with a bowl of steaming broth set on a pristine white cloth spread across the tray, Morgana waits until it's set in front of her before asking, "Gwen, do you ...." She trails off, suddenly unsure whether or not she's being insulting, then hurriedly finishes, "... would you like some? Of the soup? It's rather a big portion."

Gwen looks puzzled for a moment, then says, "I wouldn't mind, if you can't finish it all."

"I can't," Morgana says. She can, she's ravenous, but she can't get the sight of Gwen's quick nimble fingers wrapping up the meat and quick sharp teeth making short work of Morgana's scraps out of her head.

... ... ...

At one point, she's doing something Merlin suggested to help her corral her awful, awful dreams. She makes lists. She has a particularly harrowing run of dreams about Gwen and she secretly jots them all down, her handwriting cramped and spiky despite the best efforts of her comportment maid to teach her a ladylike hand. The list is mainly fractured images; Morgana learnt to be paranoid in Uther's court and can't commit to anything that might incriminate her, even in her secret scribbles.

The list goes:

\- white sheets and blood, red under dark fanned hair -- stone, sword edges

\- flowers of green and ivory and a white hart, blood on its haunch, trembling flesh in the mouth of a white brachet

\- cold grey smoke and silver tinder, above and under a smouldering homespun shift

\- bleached pale nun's clothing, crumbling stone

Morgana was initially a little concerned about the recurring theme of whiteness, wondering if she was mixing Gwen up with herself in her dreams (she's not really so vain that she'd dream about Gwen but truly be dreaming about herself, not really ... right?), but she's been ferreting out little slips of the old knowledge from peasant women and Gaius and learnt to translate overabundance of white in dreams to mean blamelessness, or purity, or the meddling of the fates.

Still, it doesn't make for a comforting set of images and she can't shake the nagging feeling of there being an overlay somewhere, patterns repeating on top of themselves with tiny, incomprehensibly significant variations. It's very strange to live your life as though somebody else has lived it all before. Sometimes she looks at Gwen and sees one of those others resting over her like a cobweb netting, serene in May greens and whites and an unmistakably noble grace.

At the end of that restless set of dreams the list goes into the fire, and Morgana berates herself for taking advice from that daffy Merlin in the first place.

... ... ...

The charity days are getting longer, it seems, and in the unseasonable heat Morgana feels wrung out like one of the skinny dogs that lie panting wherever they can find shade. When the last old beggar departs with his small bundle of bread and flint and salt, Morgana turns to Gwen and says, "I don't want to slog all the way back up to Camelot in this heat -- let's go to yours."

The humidity is getting to Gwen too, because she makes a face and sounds decidedly cranky when she says, "Oh, I'd rather not, really. Really. Let's just go to the woods, right over there, and I'm sure it'll be lovely and cool under the trees--"

"No!" Morgana draws herself up to her full height and Gwen looks crosser than ever, which perversely makes Morgana even more haughty when she declares, "I said I want to go to your home, and that's where we're going!"

The price she pays is that Gwen won't talk to her all the way there.

Morgana behaves herself and is properly sweet and quiet, even thanking Gwen for opening the door once they arrive and making sure to remark on how airy and fresh the place looks, and (as she knows it will) this thaws Gwen out considerably. "Well, sit down," Gwen flaps her into a chair, "and I'll get you some water." Morgana takes off her cloak and throws it across Gwen's immaculate bed, resisting the urge to undo her gown in several strategic places for improved airflow. It's actually a bit cooler in Gwen's house than it is outside, which she notes out loud when Gwen returns and hands her a tumbler of water.

"Not made of stone," Gwen says. She's taken off her cloak too and loosened the neckline of her gown, and looks relaxed and assured in a way that she doesn't in the castle. "Wattle and daub doesn't keep in the heat the same way as that big stodgy castle." She notices Morgana sampling the water, which has an agreeably metallic clearness to it, and explains, "Blacksmith's quench. The blacksmith's daughter might never be shod right, but she certainly had the best water and a warm house in the winter." The sadness that creeps into Gwen's smile, her dark eyes, is one Morgana recognizes all too well and her fingers clench the tumbler, aching with sympathy. But Gwen's bustling around what Morgana assumes is the larder now, and in no time she has food laid out on an embroidered cloth on the table between them.

"Not like the food you're used to, I'm afraid," Gwen says, and Morgana laughs, hunger prickling behind her teeth. "That's an improvement already!" she says merrily, and tucks in with a monstrous appetite. It's some sort of smoked meat laid out on flatbread, sprigs of herbs and a variety of pickled vegetable, and Morgana's never had anything like it. She chews and swallows and takes the opportunity to look around, the appealing plainness and tidiness of the home utterly fascinating to a girl accustomed to equating prettiness to opulence. Everything seems familiar, in an odd way, like they're things she's accustomed to seeing already. Everything looks as if it belongs.

Morgana holds out her cup for more water and as Gwen goes to dip some more from the barrel in the adjoining room, the embroidered cloth on the table suddenly reminds her of something: the interminable stretch two winters ago when a visiting gaggle of noblewomen had been staying at Camelot due to the heavy snows, and long days of Morgana being obliged to sit with them doing needlework as they gossipped endlessly about eligible menfolk and court fashions. She traces the blue cornflowers and orange peonies with her fingers, recalling the fit of annoyance when she'd thrown the lot of her sewing out of her window after Uther reprimanded her for being too curt with one of the fluff-brained nincompoops.

When she raises her eyes from the cloth, Morgana sees the home around her in a new light: there is a scrap from one of her torn, stained gowns, made into a pillow covering; there is a chipped porcelain cup doing duty as a holder for utensils; there is a series of used cosmetic cases scoured clean and holding spices. Gwen comes back and pours water, and Morgana pensively licks green sauce from her fingers as she contemplates the remainder of her meal. The meat has an underlying flavour of fennel that she finds delicious ... and familiar.

The tense look on Gwen's face tells Morgana that she's been too transparent with her realizations, and the two girls stare at each other across the table. "We're very different, aren't we," Morgana says finally, and although it sounds unbearably stupid to her own ears Gwen nods with something like relief. They finish their meal in a companionable silence, more water and some dried fruit to finish, and then Morgana says, "I'd like to lie down now." Gwen gives her a long hard look first (another thing that never happens when they're in the castle), then gets up to swish Morgana's cloak from the bed and turn down the thin coverlet. She's fluffing the pillow when Morgana comes over, tracing the backs of her fingers along the curve of Gwen's breast and waist and hip until the sensuous sway of that line makes her mouth water; Gwen stills, holding the pillow and turning her head, and Morgana gently bites her cheek.

Gwen drops the pillow on the bed and turns enough to hold Morgana's waist, push her gently down to the mattress and spread her out, lying alongside and brushing their noses together before kissing Morgana properly. Her fingers are strong on Morgana's hips, pinning them in place, and Gwen tastes Morgana with that strange relaxed assuredness, and she is iron and fennel and orange peonies and Morgana is dizzy from the carefully saved and treasured parts of herself that are everywhere around them.

... ... ...

Afterward, they lie together and look up at the decorative bits and bobs discarded from Morgana's belongings, bits and bobs that have found a new home adorning Gwen's ceiling, and Morgana says, "I've been having the most peculiar dreams about you."

"All good omens, I hope," Gwen murmurs, licking Morgana's shoulder. Morgana closes her eyes and says, "In a way. They're very ... oh, I'm not sure how to describe it. But in one you're in a nunnery, and in one you're in trouble, and in one you're wearing a crown."

Gwen laughs, which makes the dreams seem far less ominous almost immediately. "A crown!" she trills. "That's wonderful! Something to aspire to. I'm glad your dreaming mind thinks I'll be royal and important someday."

Morgana rolls over and finds Gwen's laughing mouth with her own, blinking in the bright white light from the window that haloes them both. "You're important right now."


End file.
